>...In light of the centrality of the Srebrenica atrocity, it shows
breathtaking audacity for Michael
Parenti in his Censored 2000 commentary to refer to Srebrenica only to
mention killings by Bosnian
Muslims in the area in 1992, three years before the infamous massacre. In his
comments appearing as
chapter 6, "The Media and their Atrocities," Parenti writes disparagingly
about accounts of
atrocities in Bosnia: "Hyperbolic labeling takes the place of evidence:
'genocide,' 'mass
atrocities,' 'systematic rapes,' and even 'rape camps'--camps which no one
has ever located." (p.
208) Parenti continues this denial in his recent book, To Kill a Nation.11
To the contrary, solid evidence of systematic rape was presented in the recent trial of Serb army commander Dragoljub Kunarac and two paramilitary leaders who were charged with presiding over the rape, torture, and sexual enslavement of dozens of women during 1992 and 1993 in the southeastern Bosnian town of Foca.12 Sixteen brave Bosnian women had testified against Kunarac and his colleagues. Women's groups and human rights advocates around the world hailed the guilty verdict by the ICTY, delivered in the Hague on February 22, 2001. For the first time, an international court ruled that the systematic rape of women in wartime must be considered a war crime and a crime against humanity. People on the Left ought to be equally enthusiastic about this precedent.